← Previous
Everybody seems to have glowing praise of Maven at the moment. The problem is, it's not immediately apparent from the site's front page what Maven actually does. On one hand, I really don't have the time to play around with Maven until I grok it. On the other hand, if I did grok it, perhaps it would save me an inordinate amount of time in the future? I don't know.
Next →
An object's interface (try to forget the way Java has co-opted the term for its own ends) is the set of messages to which it will respond. Thus, interface inheritance is the declaration that one class will respond to the same set of messages as another. This is the cornerstone of polymorphism: two objects that respond to a common set of messages (having a common interface) can be substitued for each other at compile- or run-time, allowing for more dynamic and flexible programming.